British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
